Waste Management 32 (2012) 625639

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Waste Management
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/wasman

Process and technological aspects of municipal solid waste gasication. A review

Umberto Arena
Department of Environmental Sciences, Second University of Naples, Via A. Vivaldi, 43, 81100 Caserta, Italy

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 27 June 2011
Accepted 9 September 2011
Available online 27 October 2011
Keywords:
Waste-to-energy
Gasication
Thermal treatment
Municipal solid waste management systems

a b s t r a c t
The paper proposes a critical assessment of municipal solid waste gasication today, starting from basic
aspects of the process (process types and steps, operating and performance parameters) and arriving to a
comparative analysis of the reactors (xed bed, uidized bed, entrained bed, vertical shaft, moving grate
furnace, rotary kiln, plasma reactor) as well as of the possible plant congurations (heat gasier and
power gasier) and the environmental performances of the main commercially available gasiers for
municipal solid wastes. The analysis indicates that gasication is a technically viable option for the solid
waste conversion, including residual waste from separate collection of municipal solid waste. It is able to
meet existing emission limits and can have a remarkable effect on reduction of landll disposal option.
2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

1. Possible routes for energy production from waste

Thermochemical treatment processes are an essential component of a sustainable integrated municipal solid waste (MSW)
management system, as conrmed by several analyses and studies
(Brunner et al., 2004; Porteous, 2005; Psomopoulos et al., 2009)
and, above all, by waste management systems that are operating
successfully worldwide. They are characterized by higher temperatures and conversion rates than most other, biochemical and
physicochemical, processes, so allowing an efcient treatment of
different types of solid waste, in particular of unsorted residual
waste (i.e. the waste left downstream of separate collection, which
cannot be conveniently recycled from an environmental and economic point of view). Their main advantages are: (i) strong reduction of the waste in mass (about 7080%) and in volume (about 80
90%), therefore preserving landll space (Consonni et al., 2005); (ii)
drastic saving of land, since that required is signicantly smaller
than that needed for landlling the same quantity of MSW (it
has been estimated that a waste-to-energy (WtE) plant processing
1 Mt/y for about 30 years requires less than 100,000 m2 of land,
which should be compared with the about 3000,000 m2 that would
be necessary for landlling of 30 Mt of MSW) (Psomopoulos et al.,
2009); (iii) destruction of organic contaminants, such as halogenated hydrocarbons (McKay, 2002; Buekens and Cen, 2011); (iv)
concentration and immobilization of inorganic contaminants, so
that they can be usefully and safely utilized or disposed (ISWA,
2008; Samaras et al., 2010); (v) utilization of recyclables from
the thermal residues, such as ferrous and non-ferrous metals from
bottom ash and slag (ISWA, 2006; CEWEP, 2011); (vi) reduction of
greenhouse gas emissions from anaerobic decomposition of the or-

E-mail address: umberto.arena@unina2.it

0956-053X/$ - see front matter 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
doi:10.1016/j.wasman.2011.09.025

ganic wastes (independent studies estimated that about 1 ton of

equivalent CO2 is saved per each ton of waste combusted rather
than landlled (Psomopoulos et al., 2009)); (vii) avoided environmental burdens, that life cycle assessment studies (Arena et al.,
2003; Azapagic et al., 2004) have quantied as a consequence of
the better environmental performances and more severe emission
regulations with respect to other energy sources (it has been publicly recognized WtE as a source of power with less environmental
impact than almost any other source of electricity (US EPA, 2003;
Rechberger and Schller, 2006)); (viii) environmentally compatible
exploitation of the renewable energy of the waste, particularly
when the plant is designed and operated for cogeneration of heat
and power (Rechberger and Schller, 2006; EC-IPPC, 2006). Thermal treatment plants can in fact convert the energy value of
MSW into different energy forms, such as electricity and process
heat for both utilization in industrial facilities or district heating.
They utilize one or more of the three main thermochemical conversion processes of combustion, pyrolysis and gasication, which are
schematically compared in Table 1.
Gasication, or indirect combustion, in particular, is the conversion of solid waste to fuel- or synthesis-gases through gasforming reactions: it can be dened as a partial oxidation of the
waste in presence of an oxidant amount lower than that required
for the stoichiometric combustion. Basically, part of the fuel is
combusted to provide the heat needed to gasify the rest (autothermal gasication), as in the case of air gasication, or heat energy is provided by an external supply (allo-thermal gasication),
as in the case of plasma torch utilization. The result is not a hot ue
gas as in the conventional direct combustion of wastes but a hot
fuel gas (producer gas or syngas), containing large amounts of
not completely oxidized products that have a caloric value, which
can be utilized in a separate process equipment, even at different
times or sites. The organic content of the waste is converted mainly

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U. Arena / Waste Management 32 (2012) 625639

Table 1
Main characteristics of the chemical processes for thermal treatment of solid waste. Adapted from Arena and Mastellone (2009).
Combustion

Gasication

Pyrolysis

To maximize waste conversion

to high temperature ue gases,
mainly CO2 and H2O

To maximize waste conversion

to high heating value fuel gases,
mainly CO, H2 and CH4

To maximize thermal
decomposition of solid waste to
gases and condensed phases

Temperature

Between 850 C and 1200 C

Pressure

Generally atmospheric

Reducing (oxidant amount lower

than that required by
stoichiometric combustion)
Air, pure oxygen, oxygenenriched air, steam
Between 550900 C (in air
gasication) and 10001600 C
Generally atmospheric

Total absence of any oxidant

Reactant gas

Oxidizing (oxidant amount

larger than that required by
stoichiometric combustion)
Air

Process output
Produced gases

CO2, H2O

CO, H2, CO2, H2O, CH4

SO2, NOx, HCl, PCDD/F,

particulate
Bottom ash can be treated to
recover ferrous (iron, steel) and
non-ferrous metals (such as
aluminium, copper and zinc) and
inert materials (to be utilized as
a sustainable building material).
Air Pollution Control residues are
generally treated and disposed
as industrial waste

H2S, HCl, COS, NH3, HCN, tar,

alkali, particulate
As for combustion process.
Bottom ash are often produced
as vitreous slag that can be
utilized as backlling material
for road construction

CO, H2, CH4 and other

hydrocarbons
H2S, HCl, NH3, HCN, tar,
particulate
Often having a not negligible
carbon content.
Treated and disposed as
industrial special waste

Treated in air pollution control

units to meet the emission limits
and then sent to the stack

It is possible to clean the syngas

to meet the standards of
chemicals production processes
or those of high efciency energy
conversion devices

Aim of the process

Operating conditions
Reaction environment

Pollutants
Ash

None
Between 500 C and 800 C
Slight over-pressure

Gas cleaning

to carbon monoxide, hydrogen and lower amounts of methane,

although the syngas is generally contaminated by undesired products such as particulate, tar, alkali metals, chloride and sulphide
(Heermann et al., 2001; Knoef, 2005). Diminishing landll volume
and high costs associated with traditional incineration technologies strongly increase the interest on the application of the gasication process to MSW: the evidence that gas is easier to handle
(and to burn) than a solid waste makes it a candidate to become
the advanced thermal treatment of the near future, for both the unsorted residual dry fraction left downstream of separate collection
and that produced from mechanical treatment of MSW (Heermann
et al., 2001; Malkow, 2004; DEFRA, 2007a).
Gasication has several potential benets over traditional combustion of solid wastes, mainly related to the possibility of combining the operating conditions (in particular, temperature and
equivalence ratio) and the features of the specic reactor (xed
bed, uidized bed, entrained bed, vertical shaft, moving grate furnace, rotary kiln, plasma reactor) to obtain a syngas suited for use
in different applications. It can be utilized as a fuel gas that can be
combusted in a conventional burner, connected to a boiler and a
steam turbine, or in a more efcient energy conversion device, such
as gas reciprocating engines or gas turbines. Its main components,
carbon monoxide and hydrogen, can also offer the basic building
blocks for producing valuable products as chemicals and fuels (Heermann et al., 2001; E4tech, 2009; Young, 2010; Stantec, 2010).
2. Gasication process basic features
2.1. Process types
The solid waste gasication is a complex process that includes a
number of physical and chemical interactions that occur at temperatures generally higher than 600 C, the exact temperature

It is possible to clean the syngas

to meet the standards of
chemicals production processes
or those of high efciency energy
conversion devices

depending on the reactor type and the waste characteristics, in

particular the ash softening and melting temperatures (Arena
and Mastellone, 2009; Higman and van der Burgt, 2003; E4tech,
2009). The different types of waste gasication processes are generally classied on the basis of oxidation medium: the process can
be carried out by partial oxidation with air, oxygen-enriched air or
pure oxygen; by steam gasication; by plasma gasication. The
partial oxidation with air generates a producer gas diluted by the
atmospheric nitrogen (up to about 60%) that has a caloric value
ranging between 4 and 7 MJ/m3N. This value was considered too
low to be utilized in a gas turbine (since it is remarkably lower
than that of natural gas that is close to 38 MJ/m3N) but in the last
years the market makes available new generation gas turbines that
are able to efciently burn low heating value syngas (provided that
it is partially cooled and adequately cleaned to protect turbine
blades). Some processes are operated with oxygen-enriched air,
i.e. a mixture of nitrogen and oxygen having an oxygen content larger than 21% and up to 50%. The goal is to obtain a higher heating
value gas as a consequence of the reduced nitrogen content, that
makes possible to carry out auto-thermal processes at higher temperature, without expensive consumption of oxygen (Mastellone
et al., 2010a). The partial oxidation with pure oxygen generates a
syngas free (or almost free) of atmospheric nitrogen and then with
a higher caloric value, ranging between 10 and 15 MJ/m3N. The
additional investment and operating costs for oxygen production
in an air separation units (ASU) are remarkable and appear justied
only for large scale units (larger than 100kt/y), on the basis of the
obtained higher syngas heating value, reduced volumetric ow
rate, low tar content and, in particular, vitreous ash production
(that allows easier disposal options). The steam gasication
generates a high hydrogen concentration, medium heating value
(1520 MJ/m3N), nitrogen-free syngas. In this case, steam is the
only gasifying agent, the process does not include exothermic

U. Arena / Waste Management 32 (2012) 625639

reactions and then it needs an external source of energy for the

endothermic gasication reactions. In case of (thermal) plasma
gasication (Moustakas et al., 2005; Lemmens et al., 2007), the
heat source of the gasier is one or more plasma arc torches that
create an electric arc and produce a very high temperature plasma
gas (up to 15,000 C), which in turn allows control of temperature
independently from uctuations in the feed quality and supply of a
gasication agent (air, oxygen or steam). This allows variations in
the feeding rate, moisture content and elemental composition of
the waste material: plasma gasiers can therefore accept
feedstocks of variable particle size, containing coarse lumps
and ne powders, with minimal feed preparation (Gomez et al.,
2009).
2.2. Process steps
The gasication of a solid waste includes a sequence of successive, endothermic and exothermic, steps (Knoef, 2005; de SouzaSantos, 2004), schematically described in Fig. 1 with reference to
main reactants and products:
 Heating and drying, that occurs at temperatures up to about
160 C: it is a combination of events that involve liquid water,
steam and porous solid phase through which liquid and steam
migrate.
 Devolatilization (or pyrolysis or thermal decomposition), that
occurs at temperatures up to about 700 C, involving thermal
cracking reactions and heat and mass transfers and determining
the release of light permanent gases (such as H2, CO, CO2, CH4,
H2O, NH3), tar (condensable hydrocarbon vapours, that release
from solid matrix as gas and liquid in form of mist) and char
(the remaining devolatilized solid waste residue). Part of the
produced vapours undergoes thermal cracking to gas and char.
For MSW, volatiles represent a signicant portion of the carbonaceous fuel that provides an easily ignitable atmosphere of
fuel gases around the solid waste as well as part of the produced
gases of the gasication process, as schematically described in
Fig. 1. The composition, quantities and characteristics of chemical species released from devolatilization (not necessarily in a

627

single stage) depend on several factors, mainly original composition and structure of the waste (Kawaguchi et al. 2002), temperature, pressure and composition of waste-involving
atmosphere and heating rate imposed by the particular reactor
type (de Souza-Santos, 2004). It should be emphasized that devolatilization releases many components, and hydrogen is
required for molecular links in several of them: then devolatilization depletes hydrogen from the original carbonaceous
matrix of the waste.
 A number of chemical reactions, that occurs in a reducing environment, i.e. under a presence of oxygen remarkably lower
(from 25 to 50%) than that required for a stoichiometric oxidation. As indicated in Table 2, in an auto-thermal gasication
process the partial oxidation of combustible gas, vapours and
char with a controlled amount of air, oxygen or oxygenenriched air provide the heat necessary to the thermal cracking
of tars and hydrocarbons and to the gasication of char by
steam or carbon dioxide, and then to keep xed the operating
temperature of the gasier. Looking at the enthalpy of reactions
No. 1, 2 and 3 in Table 2, it can be deduced that in auto-thermal
gasication processes, about 28% of the heating value of carbon
is invested in the CO production to obtain that the remaining
72% of the carbon heating value is conserved in the gas. Since
the fuel contains also some hydrogen, the percentage of the
heat in the original fuel, which becomes available in the gas is
generally between 75 and 88%: were this value only 50% or
lower, gasication would probably never have become such
an interesting process for coal, biomass and waste (Higman
and van der Burgt, 2003). On the contrary, in an allo-thermal
gasication process, the heat required by endothermic process
is provided from external sources by using heated bed materials, by burning some of the chars or gases separately or by utilizing a plasma torch. The specic gasication reactions are
those taking place between the devolatilized solid waste (char)
and gases excluding oxygen.
There is a very large number of gasication reactions but it is
possible to individuate just three independent gasication reactions (Table 2): the watergas reaction, the Bouduard reaction

Fig. 1. Schematic representation of pyrolysis, gasication and combustion stages (redrawn from Knoef, 2005).

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U. Arena / Waste Management 32 (2012) 625639

Table 2
Main reactions in heterogeneous and homogeneous phase during the solid waste gasication process.
Oxidation reactions
1
2
3
4
5

C + O2 ? CO
CO + O2 ? CO2
C + O2 ? CO2
H2 + O2 ? H2O
CnHm + n/2 O2 M nCO + m/2 H2

Gasication reactions involving steam

6
C + H2O M CO + H2
7
CO + H2O M CO2 + H2
8
CH4 + H2O M CO + 3 H2
9
CnHm + n H2O M nCO + (n + m/2) H2
Gasication reactions involving hydrogen
10
C + 2H2 M CH4
11
CO + 3H2 M CH4 + H2O

111 MJ/kmol
283 MJ/kmol
394 MJ/kmol
242 MJ/kmol
Exothermic

Carbon partial oxidation

Carbon monoxide oxidation
Carbon oxidation
Hydrogen oxidation
CnHm partial oxidation

+131 MJ/kmol
41 MJ/kmol
+206 MJ/kmol
Endothermic

Watergas reaction
Watergas shift reaction
Steam methane reforming
Steam reforming

75 MJ/kmol
227 MJ/kmol

Hydrogasication
Methanation

Gasication reactions involving carbon dioxide

12
C + CO2 M 2CO
13
CnHm + nCO2 M 2nCO + m/2 H2

+172 MJ/kmol
Endothermic

Boudouard reaction
Dry reforming

Decomposition reactions of tars and hydrocarbonsa

14
pCxHy ? qCnHm + rH2
15
CnHm ? nC + m/2 H2

Endothermic
Endothermic

Dehydrogenation
Carbonization

a
Note that CxHy represents tars and, in general, the heavier fuel fragments produced by thermal cracking and CnHm represents hydrocarbons with a smaller number of
carbon atoms and/or a larger degree of unsaturation than CxHy.

and that of hydrogasication. In the sections of gasier where

there is no more solid carbon, these reduce to only two: water
gas shift reaction, which is the combination of watergas and Bouduard reactions, and methanation, which is the combination of
watergas and hydrogasication reactions. This necessarily is a
simplied framework, since other components (H, N, O, S, etc.)
could be involved as reactants and products (de Souza-Santos,
2004). It is evident that most of the species from gasication reactions are their reduced or less-oxidized forms, such as CO instead
of CO2, H2 instead of H2O, and, for other elements, H2S instead of
SO2, and NH3 or HCN instead of NO or other oxides. Moreover,
the absence of an oxidizing atmosphere eliminates one of the steps
of the dioxins synthesis mechanism (Stieglitz and Vogg, 1987;
McKay, 2002; Vehlow, 2005) and strongly reduces their formation.
All these gasication reactions, with the exception of the oxidation ones, are equilibrium reactions. In practice, the nal composition is determined by reaction rates and by the presence of
catalytic effects (particularly important for tar decomposition reactions) rather than by the chemical equilibrium after an innite
time (Heermann et al., 2001; C-Tech, 2003; Arena et al., 2010).
Anyway, modeling on the basis of the thermodynamic equilibrium
of the main gaseous components and carbon gives important tendencies for a number of the commercially available gasiers. In
particular (C-Tech, 2003):
 At low temperatures (i.e. around 600 C), carbon and oxygen
prefer to exist as carbon dioxide and carbon char, i.e. the char
conversion is lower.
 At high temperatures, if there is an excess of carbon, the carbon
dioxide breaks down to form carbon monoxide; moreover oxygen prefers to react with carbon (to form CO and CO2) rather
than with hydrogen to form water (so hydrogen content
increases at higher temperatures).
 Methane and other hydrocarbons tend to decompose at temperatures above 600 C: this can also imply a remarkable decrease
of tar content but only for temperature higher than 1000 C.
Anyway, a tar-free gasier does not exist and tar removal
and/or conversion is required in most cases (Devi et al., 2003;
Arena et al., 2010).
 Char is present even at high temperatures, and it is in part discharged as unconverted carbon in the rejected ash, so determining loss of conversion efciency.

2.3. Operating and performance process parameters

There are some operating parameters that always play a key
role in waste gasication process, whatever the specic reactor
technology is used. They are:
 Equivalence ratio (ER), i.e. the ratio between the oxygen content
in the oxidant supply and that required for complete stoichiometric combustion. It is likely the most important operating
parameter in gasication-based WtE units, since it strongly
affects the gas composition (including tar content) and its
chemical energy. Values close to zero correspond to pyrolysis
conditions while values equal or greater than one indicate
combustion conditions. As it is shown in Fig. 2, values around

Fig. 2. Syngas composition at the chemical equilibrium as a function of equivalence

ratio, for the gasication of wood at 1 atm (redrawn from Kaupp and Goss, 1981).

U. Arena / Waste Management 32 (2012) 625639

Table 3
Typical ranges of variations of some operating and process performance
parameters in air- or oxygen-enriched air-gasication of municipal solid
waste.
Operating parameters
Equivalence ratio, Waste Low Heating Value, MJ/kgwaste
Process performance parameters
Carbon conversion efciency, %
Cold gas efciency, %
Syngas Low Heating Value, MJ//m3N
Net electrical efciency, %
Specic net energy, kWh/twaste

0.250.35a
718
9099
5080
47b
1524
400700

629

diates could lead to maximize the process performance, to

reduce the carbon losses (in both particulate and tar fractions)
and to increase the energy content of syngas (Pinto et al.,
2007; Pinto et al., 2008; Mastellone et al., 2010b).
 Composition and inlet temperature of the gasifying medium, that
necessarily affect mass and energy balances of the reactor. For
a xed oxidant, the inlet temperature is related both to the temperature prole that must be established along the gasier and
to the possibility/necessity of heat recovery from the hot syngas, for instance to meet the requirements of an internal combustion engine or another specic end-use device (Arena
et al., 2011).

This value is typically equal to 0.50 in moving grate gasiers.

This value can increase to about 10 MJ/m3N in oxygen gasication
process.
b

0.250.35 appear to maximize char conversion and then are

those typically used in large-scale commercial plants, as
reported in Table 3 even though values as high as 0.5 can be
used, in particular with moving grate gasiers (Grimshaw and
Lago, 2010) and uidized bed gasiers operated with wet fuels
(Hankalin et al., 2011). Lower values of ER leave unconverted
char and higher tar content while higher values of ER determine
the oxidation of part of syngas and the consequent reduction of
syngas heating value: this could cause incomplete combustion
in the combustion chamber that is usually downstream of the
gasier (Devi et al., 2003; Li et al., 2004; Arena et al., 2010).
 Reactor temperature or, better, the temperature prole along the
different reactor sections. It is another important operating
parameter for both allo-thermal (indirectly heated) gasiers,
where the external supply of heat provided to the gasier can
adequately be adjusted, and auto-thermal (directly heated) gasiers, where the reactor temperature prole is a state variable of
the process, i.e. the system answer to different parameters, such
as the equivalence ratio, residence time, waste chemical energy,
composition and inlet temperature of the gasifying medium,
quality of reactor insulation, etc. The temperature prole along
the reactor can also determine the state of bottom ash (i.e. the
possibility to obtain a vitried slag) and to a certain extent the
content of tar in the syngas (Devi et al., 2003; Arena et al., 2010).
 Residence time of gases and waste inside the reactor, which is largely dened by reactor type and design, and for a xed gasier
design can be varied to a limited extent: for instance, in a uidized bed, by varying the supercial gas velocity and, in a moving
grate, by increasing the velocity of the grate elements (Arena
and Mastellone, 2005; Grimshaw and Lago, 2010; Suzuki and
Nagayama, 2011).
 Waste composition and physical properties. The performances of a
waste-to-energy gasication-based process are necessarily
affected by the specic properties of the municipal solid waste.
The most important properties for gasication are: elemental
composition, lower heating value (LHV), ash content (and composition), moisture content, volatile matter content, other contaminants (like N, S, Cl, alkalies, heavy metals, etc.), bulk density
and size (Zevenhoven et al., 2001; Hermann et al., 2001; C-Tech,
2003). Some of these properties are so crucial that most of current gasication technologies generally utilize pre-processed
waste or refuse-derived fuel (RDF) rather than the waste as it
is. The pre-treatment is mainly oriented to adequately limit
the highly heterogeneous nature of the waste and reduce its
size as well as its ash and moisture content. Moreover, the composition of waste (in particular its heating value) and that of its
ash (that in some cases could provide a catalytic action) could
suggest to investigate the possibility to utilize a co-gasication
process, i.e. to feed into the gasier a mixture of different fuels
since the possible synergy between their products and interme-

The high number of these parameters reects the higher complexity of the gasication process with respect to the conventional
direct combustion. It also suggests the potential to dene adequate
combinations of the operating conditions to obtain an efcient
treatment of different kind of wastes. Similarly, the process performance is not indicated by one parameter as in the combustion process, where the combustion efciency (dened as the amount of
heat available in the waste that is released and utilized) gives a
substantially exhaustive indication of the quality of the waste thermal treatment. For a gasication process different performance
parameters are used. The most important are:
 Cold gas efciency (CGE), dened as the ratio between the chemical energy of the produced syngas (obtained as syngas ow rate
multiplied by its net heating value) and the chemical energy of
the waste fed to the plant (obtained as waste ow rate multiplied by its net heating value), i.e. CGE = (Qsyngas LHVgas)/(Qwaste
LHVwaste). It is called cold efciency since it does not take into
account the gas sensible heat but only its potential chemical
energy, i.e. that related to the combustion heats of obtained
syngas and fed waste.
 Hot gas efciency (HGE), dened as the ratio between the sum of
chemical energy and sensible heat of the produced syngas (Hout)
and the sum of chemical energy and sensible heat (Hin) of the
waste fed to the plant, i.e. HGE = (Hout + Qsyngas LHVgas)/(Hin +
Qwaste LHVwaste).
 Carbon conversion efciency (CCE), that is dened as the ratio
between the carbon ow rate converted to gaseous products
and that fed to the reactor with the solid waste, i.e. CCE =
(Qsyngas Ccarbon_syngas)/(Qwaste Ccarbon_waste), where Ccarbon_waste is
the carbon fraction in the waste and Ccarbon_syngas is that of
carbon in gaseous component of the syngas (i.e. dust and tar
excluded). It gives an indication of the amount of unconverted
material that must be treated with other technique or sent to
disposal, and then provides a measure of chemical efciency
of the process.
 Tar content and, when it is possible, tar composition. This is a
crucial parameter since tars (a complex mixture of condensable
hydrocarbons, which includes single ring to 5-ring aromatic
compounds along with other oxygen-containing hydrocarbons
and polyaromatic hydrocarbons) causes problems in the process equipments as well as in the devices for end-use application (Milne et al., 1998). They increase the occurrence of
slagging in boilers and on other metal and refractory surfaces,
can ruin reforming catalysts, sulphur removal systems, ceramic
lters; can cause blockages and corrosion and also reduces the
overall efciency of the process. Moreover, if tar content of
the syngas is reduced by means of a wet physical method, tars
are just moved from the gas to wastewater, with the consequent dual drawback of losing their chemical energy and generating an hazardous wastewater. Therefore, tar content and
composition indicate the energy conversion device that can be
reasonably utilized, taking into account the technical and

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U. Arena / Waste Management 32 (2012) 625639

Table 4
Comparison between the main energy generation devices that can be used in a gasication-based waste-to-energy plant. Adapted from Arena and Mastellone (2009) and Arena
et al. (2011).
Energy
conversion
device

Net electrical
efciency of
gasication
plant

Main advantages

Main disadvantages

Required level of
syngas cleaning a

Steam
turbine

1524%

Gas turbine

2030%

High electrical efciency. Turbine components are

isolated from combustion products. Long
maintenance intervals, high availability. High specic
work (kJ/kg yielded for working uid)
High electrical efciency. Compact assembly. Long
maintenance intervals, high availability. Ideal for
cogeneration plants (CHP) due to high exhaust
temperatures

Expensive. Partial load decreases efciency

signicantly. Plants is extremely large due to
space requirements for the condenser and the
heat recovery steam generator (HRSG)
Turbine components are exposed to combustion
products. Partial load decreases efciency
signicantly. Moderately expensive

Tar: not limited Dust: not

limited. Alkalies: not
limited. Heavy metals: not
limited H2S: not limited
Tar: 10 mg//m3N Dust: 5 mg//

High electrical efciency. Relatively inexpensive.

Durable and reliable. Partial load effects efciency
only marginally

Engine components are exposed to combustion

products.Short and expensive maintenance
intervals, low availability

Gas engine

1426%

m3N Alkalies: 0.1 ppm,wb

Heavy metals: 0.1 ppm,wb
H2S: 20 ppm, vb
Tar: 100 mg//m3N Dust:
50 mg//m3N Alkalies:
0.1 ppm,wb Heavy metals:
0.1 ppm,wb H2S: 20 ppm, vb

wb = weight basis; vb = volume basis.

economical performance of the cleaning techniques that can be

applied inside the reactor (primary measures) and/or downstream of it (secondary measures) (Devi et al., 2003; Arena
et al., 2010).
 Other parameters, such as syngas heating value (kJ/m3N), specic
syngas ow rate (m3N/kgwaste), specic energy production (i.e. the
chemical energy of the syngas obtained by the mass unit of
solid waste fed to the gasier, kJ/kgwaste).
Anyway, the parameters reported above not necessarily provide
an exhaustive assessment of the quality of the obtained syngas,
since it can have different possible utilization. For instance, a syngas
with an elevated CGE can be adequate for a WtE unit but less for an
application focused to a conversion to liquid fuels or to chemicals.
Even in the present market of MSW gasier, where the energy production appears to be the main goal of the treatment, CGE and the
specic energy production could be both crucial but not sufcient
for a denitive assessment of a process. This could prefer to maximize the stability of solid residues instead of the overall energy
recovery, these two objectives being often in conict (Heermann
et al., 2001). Table 3 reports the range of variations of the main
parameters of process performances, as collected by different
sources (Knoef, 2005; Grimshaw and Lago, 2010; Tanigaki et al.,
2011; Suzuki and Nagayama, 2011; Hankalin et al., 2011).
3. Possible congurations of gasication-based waste-to-energy
units
The gasication-based WtE technologies can work as standalone applications or as part of integrated or modular systems
combining pyrolysis, gasication and/or combustion processes.
Their congurations can be sketched as a combination of three sections (Arena et al., 2011): syngas production, syngas utilization and
syngas/ue gas cleaning. The rst denes the syngas that can be
produced and then, for xed solid waste and gasication technology, the quantity and quality of this syngas. The utilization section
indicates the syngas that can be fed in a specic energy conversion
device and then, for a given machinery (steam turbine, gas engine,
gas turbine), its temperature, heating value and cleaning level (i.e.
tar and dust content but also that of alkali metals and inorganic
contaminants). Table 4 lists main advantages and disadvantages
of the energy generation devices available for large- or mediumscale gasication-based WtE plant, together with the related required levels of syngas cleaning.

The relative succession of the utilization and cleaning sections

depends on two possible congurations of the waste-to-energy
gasication system that can be adopted: the power gasier, where
the producer gas is rst cleaned then burned, and the heat gasier,
where the producer gas is rst burned then cleaned (Fig. 3). Then,
for a power gasier the cleaning section is the interface between
the characteristics of the producer gas and those required by the
specic end-use device whereas for a heat gasier it consists of a
possible pre-treatment of the syngas to remove contaminants
(such as hydrogen chloride) before it goes into a combustor (where
the part of waste chemical energy contained within the tars is also
recovered) and then to air-pollution control (APC) system for ue
gas cleaning. The heat gasier where the raw syngas is combusted into a boiler to feed an externally-red cycle (that in practice is almost always a Rankine steam cycle) is the most used
conguration in the WtE gasication-based plant that is today in
operation. It is less energy efcient but has a number of advantages
over conventional incineration of wastes: (i) combustion of low
molecular fuel gases from gasication processes can be more efcient and cleaner than direct combustion of raw wastes, mainly because the exact required amount of oxidant can be well mixed with
the fuel gases to obtain an optimized reaction; (ii) the lower excess
of air implies lower thermal losses at the stack; (iii) the homogeneous-phase combustion allows an easier control and a more continuous operation; (iv) the volume of output fuel gas from a
gasier is much smaller per ton of waste processed than that from
an incinerator; (v) even if this output gas is eventually combusted,
gasication process offers an intermediate step where gas clean-up
can occur. The heat gasier can be seen as a staged combustion
process, and, in some cases, it is not possible to discern a distinction between the gasication and combustion stages. On the contrary, the power gasier conguration where the syngas is
properly treated to meet the specications of an internally-red
cycle or a synthesis process presents a clear distinction of the
gas production stage from those of gas cleaning and better utilizes
the potential of the gasication plant.

4. Waste gasication vs waste combustion

The considerations reported above indicate that solid waste
gasication presents several, effective or potential, benets over
traditional direct combustion of solid wastes. They can be schematically reported as in the following:

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631

Fig. 3. Schematic representation of the WtE gasication-based congurations of a heat and a power gasier (Arena et al., 2011).

 Gasication produces an intermediate product, which is suitable for use in a wide range of applications, such as energy generation or liquid fuels and chemicals manufacturing processes.
On the contrary, conventional WtE units directly combust waste
feedstock.
 There is a potential for higher efciency conversion when the
fuel gas is burned in gas reciprocating engines or gas turbines
or, better, integrated gasier combined cycles, compared with
conventional Rankine steam cycle power systems.
 Operating temperatures typically lower than those of direct
combustion reduce potential for alkali volatilization, fouling,
slagging, heavy metal volatilization and (for uidized bed reactors) bed agglomeration.
 Application for power generation at a smaller scale (typically
lower than 120 kt/y), for which the conventional direct combustion system could be not convenient, since gas cleaning (that is
primary concern and expense) could be less relevant.
 Gasication plants are often modular (and this allows the possibility to modify the capacity of solid waste treatment) and
are also quicker to build.
 Except for y ash and some volatile components, most of the
inert, non-combustible material is collected at the bottom of
the reactor, with metals mainly in a non-oxidized form.
 Due to the reducing atmosphere, emission of dioxins and furans
are strongly limited.
 Pre-mixed ames can yield substantial reduction of NOX
emissions.

 In the case of heat gasier conguration, between the gasier

and the combustor, raw syngas may undergo cooling and some
sort of treatment. Cleaning of the product gas from gasication
prior, for instance, to ring the gas in a boiler means that high
temperature corrosion of the metal of the superheater is so
reduced that higher steam temperatures can be tolerated and
thus higher electric efciencies can be achieved. However, syngas treatment is generally mild (typically, removal of coarse
particular matter) because the homogeneous combustion process downstream can easily handle high contents of acid gas,
impurities, tar, etc. In fact, the homogeneous gasgas oxidation
is much easier to control than the heterogeneous solidgas oxidation taking place in a conventional WtE plant: this allows
reducing excess air and possibly realize pre-mixed ames.
 The decit of air (instead of an excess) reduces heat losses at the
stack and thus increases energy recovery efciency.
Some of these potential advantages are schematically listed in
Table 5 and compared with the corresponding potential
drawbacks.

5. Gasication technologies for thermochemical conversion of

solid waste
There are several gasication technologies that in the last two
decades have been developed and are now commercially available

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U. Arena / Waste Management 32 (2012) 625639

Table 5
Schematic analysis of main potential advantages of solid waste gasication with respect to solid waste combustion. Adapted from Consonni and Vigan (2010).
Potential advantage/benet of gasication vs. combustion

Related drawbacks/issues that hinder the benet of gasication

Fuel syngas generated by gasication is easier to handle, meter, control and burn
than solid MSW

 Syngas is toxic and potentially explosive, its presence raises major security
concerns and requires a reliable control equipment
 Plants tend to be more complex and more difcult to operate and maintain
since feedstock is converted in two steps (gasication + syngas combustion/
conversion)
At the smallest scale of waste treatment plants, efciency of internally-red
systems is low (especially if gas turbine-based) so that the heat conguration
becomes an unescapable choice
The actual production of pollutants depends on how syngas is processed
downstream of the gasier: if syngas is eventually oxidized, dioxins, furans
and NOX potentially may still be an issue
 The required syngas conditioning and cleaning is today costly
 The consumptions and losses of gasication and syngas clean-up imply that
the overall energy conversion efciency is close to that of combustion plants
The required syngas treatment is very costly, so that synthesizing quality fuels or
chemicals could entail prohibitive costs

Gasication plants can be designed for a small-medium scale (up to about 120kt/
y) at which the direct combustion plants appear too expensive
The reducing environment of the gasier: (i) improves the quality of solid
residues, particularly metals; (ii) strongly reduces the generation of some
pollutants (dioxins, furans and NOX)
Syngas can be used, after proper treatment, in highly efcient internally-red
cycles (gas turbines and combined cycles, Otto engines)
Syngas could be used, after proper treatment, to generate high-quality fuels (diesel
fuel, gasoline or hydrogen) or chemicals

for WtE plants (Heermann et al., 2001; Malkow, 2004; Arena and
Mastellone, 2005; Juniper, 2009). A possible taxonomy is proposed
in Table 6. It highlights that the main differences are related to the
direct or indirect way of heat supply, to whether the gasier is
operated at above atmospheric pressure (so obtaining higher
throughputs, larger hydrogen contents and smaller clean-up units
but entailing higher investment and operating costs, that are likely
prohibitive for a WtE unit), to the operating temperature range
(that can determine the possibility to obtain bottom ash under
form of an easy-to-handle molten or vitreous slags), to the way
by means of the waste is fed into the gasier (into the top or into
the side) and is moved around within it (by gravity, air ows or
mechanical devices); to whether air or oxygen or O2-enriched air
is used as oxidant (steam is utilized mainly for coal or biomass gasication). Most of these technologies have been developed and
commercialized for the cogeneration of heat and power from the
syngas, on the basis of the above mentioned heat gasier conguration. Only a few, particularly in Japan, utilizes a power gasier
conguration or are operated to produce chemicals (in particular,
ammonia) (Steiner et al., 2002). Table 7 proposes a list of some selected companies (among more than 20) that in total have in operation more than 100 gasiers and are able to offer a proven
gasication process for different kinds of solid wastes. With reference to their range of capacity, it is interesting to note that the
main reason of the relatively low values of the maximum capacity
of the MSW gasiers is likely related to the guidelines of the government of Japan, where the gasication technology was rst largely utilized. Japanese municipal governments are in principle
required to treat wastes inside their own territories so that WtE
plants have a reduced average capacity (about 70 kt/y), much
smaller than that of Europeans plants (Suzuki and Nagayama,
2011).
A brief description of the types of gasication reactors that are
today utilized for solid waste gasication is reported in the following, while their peculiar characteristics are compared in detail in
Table 8.
5.1. Fixed bed gasiers (updraft and downdraft)
In a xed (or moving) bed gasier a deep bed of waste is present
in almost all the volume of the reactor and different zones can be
distinguished, with a sequence that depends on the ow direction
of the waste and gasication medium. These zones are not physically xed and move up- and downwards depending on operating
conditions, so that they can be to some extent in overlapping. In
the updraft reactors the waste is fed in at the top of the gasier,
and the oxidant intake is at the bottom, so that the waste moves

counter-currently to the gases, and passes trough different zones

(drying, pyrolysis, reduction and oxidation) successively. The fuel
is dried in the top of the gasier, so that waste with high moisture
content can be used. Some of the resulting char falls and burns to
provide heat. The methane and tar-rich gas leave at the top of the
gasier, and the ash falls from the grate for collection at the bottom. In the downdraft reactors, the waste is fed in at the top of
the gasier while the oxidant from the top or the sides: then the
waste and gases move in the same direction. It is possible to distinguish the same zones of updraft gasiers but in a different order.
Some of the waste is burnt, falling through the gasier throat to
form a bed of hot char which the gases have to pass through. This
ensures a fairly high quality syngas (with a relatively low tar content), which leaves at the base of the gasier, with ash collected
under the grate. A sort of atmospheric moving bed downdraft gasier is the vertical shaft-furnace proposed by Nippon Steel as Direct Melting System. It is a high temperature gasication and
melting process, with O2-enriched air injection in the melting section (at 36% of O2 concentration), which directly evolved from metallurgical processing technology (Williams et al., 2003; Shibaike
et al., 2005). MSW is charged from the top of the furnace, together
with coke, used as reducing agent, and limestone, used as viscosity
regulator. A coke bed layer is formed in the lower part of direct
melting furnace (about 50 kg of coke is added for each ton of
MSW) and it is burned and kept at high temperatures in order to
melt ash stably, to prevent cool-down of slag and accelerating
waste thermal devolatilization and gasication. Limestone is also
added for about 5% by weight, to provide some pH buffering of
the melt and to form uid slag that can be easily discharged from
the furnace bottom. From the top to the bottom of the gasier it is
possible to individuate a pre-heating and drying region (which
operates at about 300 C), a gasication region (which operates between 300 and 1000 C), a combustion region (between 1000 and
1700 C) and a fusion region (between 1700 and 1800 C). The produced syngas is transferred to a swirling combustor that transfers
the generated thermal energy to a boiler, which in turn powers a
steam turbine that produces electricity. Nippon Steel claims power
generation from about 400 kWh/tMSW (when MSW is co-gasied
with bottom ash discharged from other MSW incinerators and with
combustible and incombustible residues from recycling centers) to
about 670 kWh/tMSW (when only MSW is gasied), depending on
the feedstock properties (LHV and ash content, which causes higher sensible heat of melt) and boiler system (Tanigaki et al., 2011).
There are more than 30 plants constructed by Nippon Steel in Japan and in Korea, with a capacity range from 100 to 450 tons/
day (UCR, 2009). Another high-temperature gasication, again carried out in a sort of moving bed downdraft gasier coupled with a

U. Arena / Waste Management 32 (2012) 625639

633

Table 6
Taxonomy of solid waste gasiers.
Criteria
Heat supply
Pressure
Gasication agent

Reactor design

Types (Acronym)











Temperature
Bottom ash status
Energy recovery












Directly heated (auto-thermal) gasiers

Indirectly heated (allo-thermal) gasiers
Atmospheric gasiers (A)
Pressurized gasiers (P)
Air gasiers (AG)
Oxygen enriched-air gasiers (EAG)
Oxygen gasiers (OG)
Steam gasiers (SG)
Plasma gasiers (PG)
Fixed bed gasiers:
Up-draft (UD)
Down-draft (DD)
Fluidized bed gasiers:
Bubbling uidized bed (BFB)
Circulating uidized bed (CFB)
Internally circulating uidized bed (ICFB)
Entrained ow gasiers (EF)
Rotary kiln gasiers (RK)
Moving grate gasiers (MG)
Plasma gasiers (PG)
Low-temperature gasiers (typically below 900 C) (LT)
High-temperature gasiers (typically above 1200 C) (HT)
Dry bottom ash gasiers (BA)
Vitried slag gasiers (VS)
Heat gasiers (dirty syngas is post-combusted in a recovery boiler with heat/electricity production via steam turbine cycle) (HEG)
Power gasiers (syngas is rst cooled and cleaned and clean syngas is then burned in an internal combustion engine or a gas turbine) (PWG)

process integrated melting, is that proposed by JFE Engineering Co.

that licensed two technologies: one from Thermoselect S.A. (converter reactor, which utilizes pure oxygen and, in some conguration, includes a degassing section before the gasier) and another
one, JFE Gasifying and Melting System, from NKK and Kawasaki
Steel (shaft reactor, which utilizes oxygenenriched air, with
about 35% of oxygen content, as gasifying medium). There are several plants in operation, mostly in Japan but also in Germany and
Italy: they process mixed MSW, industrial waste, incineration
residues or refuse-derived fuel (RDF) (Heermann et al., 2001; Juniper, 2009; UCR, 2009; Suzuki and Nagayama, 2011).
5.2. Bubbling and circulating uidized bed gasiers
In a bubbling uidized bed (BFB), the ow of gaseous oxidant
(air, oxygen or oxygen-enriched air) is blown upwards through a
distributor plate and permeates a bed of inert material (typically,
silica sand or olivine) located at the gasier bottom, which contains
the waste to be treated (Arena and Mastellone, 2005). The supercial gas velocity (the ratio between gas volumetric ow rate and
the cross section area) is usually about 1 m/s, i.e. several times larger than the value (called minimum uidization velocity) that
causes the drag forces on the particles to equal the weight of the
particles in the bed and gives it a uid-like behaviour (Kunii and
Levenspiel, 1991). This uid-like state produces an intense mixing
and gassolid contact that allow very high heat and mass transfers.
All the main properties of the system are strongly related to the
crucial role that hydrodynamics plays in the design and operations
of a uidized bed (Kunii and Levenspiel, 1991; Grace, 1986; Arena
and Mastellone, 2005). There are not moving parts inside the reactor, and then the maintenance is simple and relatively cheap. The
waste is generally fed overbed from one or more points along the
side walls, is fast heated and devolatilized and reacts. Most of gasication reaction occur inside the bed and the splashing zone, i.e.
the region just above the top of the bed, where there is the maximum turbulence induced by bubbles eruption (Mastellone and
Arena, 2008; Arena et al., 2010). The produced syngas moves upwards along the freeboard (the vertical space above the bed height)
and leaves the reactor. A BFB gasier operates at temperatures below 900 C to avoid ash melting and sintering that can determine a

worsening of the uidization quality and in some cases the bed

deuidization. Some companies, such as Hitachi Zosen Co. and Kobelco Eco-Solutions Co., propose BFB gasiers coupled with a swirlow melting furnace, where the producer gas is burned at high
temperatures (above 1200 C) to fuse ash and produce vitried
slags. Steel and aluminum contained in the waste are extracted
from the gasier bottom in an unoxidized state (Hitachi Zosen,
2011; Kobelco-eco, 2011). A special version of BFB gasiers is that
called internally circulating bed (ICFB) that has a special uidizing
gas distributor, able to improve the radial mixing of gas and solids.
This technology is offered by Ebara and, as in the solution mentioned above, is coupled with a melting furnace (cyclone combustor) operated at about 1400 C (Selinger et al., 2003).
When the supercial gas velocity increases signicantly more
than the terminal velocity of the solids (typically to more than
3 m/s), there is a no more distinct upper surface of the bed and
large amounts of particles are carried out of the bed with the
gas: steady state operation is possible only if entrained particles
are collected by a cyclone and then returned to the bed by means
of a downcomer and a non-mechanical valve. This type of uidized
bed reactors are called circulating uidized beds (CFB), where the
term circulating signies that the particle separation and return
systems are integral and essential components of the reactor: the
regime is dened not only by the supercial gas velocity but also
by the solid mass ux that recirculates in the system. In a CFB gasier the waste is fed from the side, fast heated and devolatilized
and then reacts with air or oxygen-enriched air. The suspension
of syngas and particles (inert material and waste char) moves upwards along the riser and enters the cyclone. The temperatures are
below 900 C to avoid ash melting and sintering. CFB gasiers of
biomass and refuse-derived fuel are proposed for instance by
Metso Power that is completing a 160 MWfuel unit at Lahti, in
Finland, red with household waste (origin sorted), industrial
waste, demolition wood and waste wood from industry, that will
start in operation in April 2012 (Hankalin et al., 2011).
5.3. Entrained ow gasiers
These reactors are commonly operated at high pressures, about
25 bar. Then they are used to treat coal, but also renery residues

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U. Arena / Waste Management 32 (2012) 625639

Table 7
Selected companies of WtE gasication-based plants, that offer a commercially proven process. Main sources data are: Heermann et al. (2001), Steiner et al. (2002), Williams et al.
(2003), Selinger et al. (2003), Okuwaki (2004), Arena and Mastellone (2005), UCR (2009), Juniper (2009), Grimshaw and Lago (2010), Suzuki and Nagayama (2011), Tanigaki et al.
(2011).
Company

Gasication processa

Type of solid wasteb

No. of WtE
gasiers

Range of capacity,
kt/y

AlterNRG (Canada), Westinghouse Plasma Corp., Hitachi Metals

(Japan)
Ebara TIFG (Japan)

A-PG-HT-VS-PWG

MSW, RDF, ASR,

TDF
MSW, ASR, MPW,
IW
MPW

2 (+1)

890

12

30135

1060

RDF
RDF
RDF, IR, IW,

8 (+6)
9
10

1080
10100
30110

RDF

7
12 (+1)
7 (+2)
32 (+5)
2
2

30200
20170
60150
30230
535
40100

Ebara Co. and Ube Industries Ltd (Japan)

A-AG-ICFB-LT-(BA + VS)-HEG

Energos (Norway/UK)
Hitachi Zosen (Japan)
JFE (Japan); (Kawasaki Steel and NKK)

P-OG-ICFB-(LT + HT)-VS-NH3
production
A-AG-MG-BA-HEG
A-AG-BFB-LT-(BA + VS)-HEG
A-(EAG)-DD-HT-VS-PWG

JFE (Japan); Thermoselect (Switzerland)

Kobelco (Japan)
Mitsui (Japan)
Nippon Steel Engineering (Japan)
Plasco Energy Group (Canada)
Takuma (Japan)

A-(OXG)-DD-HT-VS-PWG
A-AG-BFB-LT-(BA + VS)-HEG
A-AG-RK-HT-VS-HEG
A-EAG-DD-HT-VS-HEG
A-PG-HT-VS-PWG
A-AG-RK-HT-VS-HEG

MSW,
MSW,
MSW,
EW
MSW,
MSW
MSW,
MSW,
MSW,
MSW,

ASR
IR, IW
RDF
ASR

Acronyms from Table 6.

ASR = auto shredded residue; EW = excavated wastes; IR = incineration residues; IW = industrial waste; MPW = mixed plastic waste; MSW = municipal solid waste;
RDF = refuse-derived fuel; TDF = tire-derived fuel.
b

and mixed plastic waste, because they can be slurried to make solid fuel feeding at high-pressures inexpensive and have an energy
content high enough to sustain the gasication reaction (with the
addition of a supplementary fuel if necessary). In an entrained ow
gasier, ne fuel particles (well smaller than 1 mm, usually obtained by a grinder step) are added to water to produce the slurry,
with a solids concentration >60%. Water serves as a transport medium and temperature moderator but even as a reactant, as it promotes hydrogen formation (Table 2). The slurry is fed into a
gasier with pressurized oxygen (or air). A turbulent ame at the
top of the gasier burns some of the fuel, providing large amounts
of heat, at high temperature (12001500 C, anyway above the ash
melting temperature) for fast conversion of waste into a high quality syngas. The ash melts onto the gasier walls, and is discharged
as molten slag into the quench chamber for cooling: metals present
are encapsulated in the cooled slag (NETL, 1995).

5.4. Rotary kiln gasiers

This reactor is largely used in several applications, from the
industrial waste incineration to the cement production. The rotary
kiln concept accomplishes two objectives simultaneously: moving
solids into and out of a high-temperature reaction zone and mixing
the solids during reaction. A kiln is typically comprised of a steel
cylindrical shell lined with abrasion-resistant refractory to prevent
overheating of the metal. It is generally inclined slightly toward the
discharge end (about 0.03 m/m), and the movement of the solids
being processed is controlled by the speed of rotation (about
1.5 rpm). Rotary kilns are used as rst stage of a two-step process
in the Mitsui Recycling 21 process. The waste is gasied at 450 C
in a gasication drum and converted into gas and char with other
residue of metals, ash and debris. After separation and recovery of
aluminum, iron and other residue, the exit stream is fed into a high
temperature combustion chamber and burnt at 1300 C and low
excess air ratio (about 1.2), where ash also fed into is melted and
slag (UCR, 2009). The waste is gasied with high temperature air
obtained in a high temperature air heater, then no additional external fuel is needed. The recovery of iron, aluminum and slag, which
can be sold, leads to a very high waste volume reduction ratio,
which can reach 1/200 of the original waste volume (JAEE, 2011).
A similar process is offered by Takuma.

Moving grate gasiers. Mechanical grates is the most utilized

reactor type for combustion-based WtE units. This constant-ow
grate feeds the refuse continuously from the refuse feed chute to
the incinerator furnace, provides movement of the refuse bed
and ash residue toward the discharge end of the grate, and does
some stoking and mixing of the burning material on the grates.
The grate furnace has been recently proposed for gasication process by Energos (which has several plants in operation in Norway,
Germany and United Kingdom) to improve the fuel exibility of
MSW gasiers (Okuwaki, 2004). The thermal conversion takes
place in two stages: the primary chamber for gasication of the
waste (typically at an equivalence ratio of 0.5) and the secondary
chamber for high temperature oxidation of the syngas produced
in the primary chamber. The gasication unit is equipped with a
horizontal oil-cooled grate that is divided into several separate sections, each with a separate primary air supply, and a water-cooled
guillotine installed at the inlet of the gasication unit to control the
thickness of the fuel bed. The oxidation in the secondary chamber
is facilitated by multiple injections of air and recycled ue-gas
(Grimshaw and Lago, 2010).

5.5. Plasma gasiers

Untreated waste is dropped into the gasier, often a moving bed
gasier, coming into contact with an electrically generated plasma,
usually at atmospheric pressure and temperatures of 1500
5000 C. Organic matter is converted into a high quality syngas,
and inorganic matter is vitried into inert slag. Plasma gasiers
use plasma torches, as for instance in the WtE units proposed by
Hitachi Metals Env. Syst. Co. and Alter NG (Williams et al., 2003;
Willis et al., 2010), where plasma torches are located in the bottom
of the gasier, ring into a bed of carbon to melt inorganics in the
MSW, forming glass aggregate and metal nodules that emerge
from the bottom of the unit. Westinghouse Plasma has designed
a donut-shaped chamber in the upper half of the gasier, above
the moving bed, where tars and other hard-to-gasify molecules reside for 0.51 min and are cracked. Plasma gasication facilities require a large amount of electricity to operate the plasma torch. It is
generally indicated that it is necessary about 12002,500 MJ/twaste,
then in the range 510% of the energy of the feed waste. These
electrical consumptions are in the order of 1520% of the gross

Table 8
Comparison between different gassolid reactors for solid waste and gasication. Main sources data are: Grace (1986), Heermann et al. (2001), Arena and Mastellone (2005), Knoef (2005), E4tec (2009), UCR (2009), Juniper (2009),
Grimshaw and Lago (2010).
Downdraft
Fixed Bed
Fuel requirements
Particle size

morphology
moisture content
ash content
ash melting point
bulk density
Temperature
prole

Conversion

Process exibility

Waste particle diameter up to

100 mm. Due to the poor
temperature control, there is risk of
sintering

uniform
<20%
<5% db
>1250 C
>500 kg/m3
Large
temperature
gradients can
occur.
Frequent
presence of hot
spots

almost uniform
<50%
<15% db
>1000 C
>400 kg/m3
Large
temperature
gradients .
Frequent
presence of hot
spots. Relatively
low gas exit
temperatures
Inefcient exchange. Necessity of
large surface of heat exchanger.
(20-100)

Bubbling Fluidized Bed

Circulating Fluidized
Bed

Entrained Flow

Rotary Kiln

Moving Grate

Plasma

Waste particle must be not

larger than 150 mm. Bed
particle diameter between
0.08 and 3 mm. Attrition of
bed particles (and their
entrainment) may be severe
uniform
<55%
<25% db
>1000 C
> 100 kg/m3
Temperature is almost
constant in vertical
direction. Very small
variation in radial direction.
The range is 5501000 C

Waste particle must be

not larger than
100 mm. Bed particle
diameter between 0.05
to 0.5 mm

Fine fuel particles (smaller

than 1 mm, usually as a result
of a grinder) are added to
water to produce the slurry
(with a solids concentration
>60%) that is fed to the gasier
uniform
<15%
< 20% db
< 1250 C
> 400 kg/m3
The range is 12001500 C,
anyway above the ash melting
temperature

No problem for size. Any

size can be treated, from
nes to large lumps

Waste particle must

be not larger than
200 mm

No problem for
size

no problem
no problem
< 40% db
no problem
> 100 kg/m3
Longitudinal as well as
transversal gradient may be
large and not easy to
control

no problem
< 60%
< 20% db
> 1200 C
250350 kg/m3
Longitudinal and
transversal
gradients are
present

no problem
no problem
no problem
no problem
>100 kg/m3
Dened by the
specic process,
but usually very
high, typically
between 1,500
and 5,500 C)

Very high
temperatures
imply that heat
exchange is
dominated by
radiation

uniform
<55%
<25% db
>1000 C
> 100 kg/m3
Small temperature
gradients in the
direction of solids ow
can be limited by high
solid ow rate
circulation. The range is
9001000 C

Very efcient exchange.

Large heat transfer
activated by solids
circulation. (200-700)

Efcient exchange,
particularly along
longitudinal direction.
(100-350)

Poor exchange (dominated by

radiation)

Very poor exchange. There

is often the necessity of
long cylinder kilns.
(dominated by radiation)

Poor exchange.
(dominated by
radiation)

Particles stay in the bed until their

discharge

Particles spend substantial

time (minutes or hours) in
the bed. Gas residence time
depends on gas velocity that
is below 2 m/s

Very short (few seconds)

Very long (12 hours)

Longer (>1hour)
than that for
combustion process

High gasication
Very high
efciency
conversion is
possible with
gas plug ow
and adequate
temperature
control
Very limited. Any change in
process variables often needs a
new reactor design

Mixing of solids and gas

bypassing can determine
performance poorer than
that of other reactors

Particles pass
repeatedly trough the
circulation loop:
residence time for each
circuit is few seconds.
Gas velocity is from 3
to 15 m/s
High conversion is
possible

Conversion can be high

Conversion
efciency of the
process can be over
90%

Conversion can
be as high as
100%

Excellent. It can be used for

low- and high-temperature
pyrolysis and gasication, in
presence or not of a catalyst.
Different solid wastes can
be treated
Excellent for continuous
operations, yielding a
uniform product

Excellent. Different
gasifying agents can be
add at different heights
of the riser

Very limited. Size and energy

content of the waste must be
in a narrow range. Pretreatment steps are usually
adopted

Limited. Solid
residence time and
temperature prole
can be varied in a
narrow range

Excellent

Excellent for
continuous operations

Excellent for continuous

operations

Limited. The operating

parameters (residence
time, temperature, etc.) can
be varied in a narrow range.
Generally used to produce
fuel gas for energy recovery
Widely used. Suitable for
solids, which may sinter or
agglomerate

Widely used

Excellent temperature
control allows large-scale
operations

Attrition of catalyst is
serious

Not used

Not used

Not used

Very interesting
for industrial and
hazardous
wastes
Not used

Non-catalytic
process

High temperatures gasiers

provide reliable continuous
operations

Catalytic process

It can be used for very slow, non

deactivating catalyst

635

(continued on next page)

U. Arena / Waste Management 32 (2012) 625639

Heat exchange
and typical
suspension-tosurface heat
transfer coeff.
(W/m2K)
Residence time

Updraft Fixed
Bed

High cost of
investments.
Generally
convenient for
large-scale plants.
Large costs of
maintenance due to
moving parts
Moderate cost of
investments. Large costs of
maintenance due to
moving parts and the
fouling and erosion of inner
walls
Very high investment and
operating costs that impose
large scale gasication plants.
Capital costs higher
than those for BFB.
Generally convenient
for large-scale plants.
Moderate. The possibility of
small-scale plants makes
wider the investment
alternatives. Low costs of
maintenance.
The major advantage is the reactor
simplicity and the relatively
limited investment costs.
Costs

The technology is
offered in small
scale identical
modules. So
there are no
scale-up risks
Very high cost of
investments and
high operating
cost. Electric
energy
consumptions
can be relevant
The long design and
operating
experience limits
the problems
Generally not relevant.
Various size kilns have
been installed
The long design and operating
experience in coal gasication
processes allows very large
gasiers
Some large projects are
planned
They must be carefully
considered. A pilot plant is
often necessary
Can be scaled, taking carefully into
account the temperature control.

Plasma
Moving Grate
Rotary Kiln

Scale-up problems

Table 8 (continued)

Downdraft
Fixed Bed

Updraft Fixed
Bed

Bubbling Fluidized Bed

Entrained Flow

U. Arena / Waste Management 32 (2012) 625639

Circulating Fluidized
Bed

636

power output of the plant (Williams et al., 2003; Lombardi et al.,

2012; Hetland et al., 2011).
Even though plasma is typically used to valorize solid wastes in
a single-stage process, there is also a quite different, two-stage approach. The rst stage utilizes a conventional gasier while the
second plasma stage is used to reduce the tar content in the syngas
and increase the conversion efciency. This approach is proposed
by Advanced Plasma Power (APP) in the UK and Plasco Energy
Group in Canada (Table 7). APP has so far one small-scale, demonstration plant in operation. Their process utilizes a uidized bed
gasier fed with RDF, followed by a plasma converter, a gas cleaning section and a power generation section. The bed of silica sand
particles is uidized at about 850 C; the produced crude syngas
passes into a plasma converter, which operates at about 1200 C
and cracks tars and chars, so producing a hydrogen-rich syngas
while ash and inorganic remain in the vitried slag. Note that a
supply of steam and oxygen if fed to both the uidized bed gasier
and the plasma converter to help the process. The H2-rich fuel gas,
having a caloric value of about 1014 MJ/m3N, is then cooled and
further cleaned before being fed into a gas engine. APP claims an
output of about 1 MWh/tRDF with a net electrical efciency higher
than 23% (Stantec, 2010; Morrin et al., 2010).

6. Environmental performance of MSW gasiers

Environmental performance of a MSW thermal treatment technology is crucial for the overall feasibility of the process. Recent
technical reports (E4Tech, 2009; UCR, 2009) indicate that thermochemical and biochemical solid waste conversion processes can be
operated with no greater threat to the human health or environment than other common industrial or commercial processes.
While biochemical processes, and those of anaerobic digestion in
particular, recently gained a widespread acceptance (DEFRA,
2007b), gasication processes still met resistance from the environmental community, mainly due to the misperception that they
are only minor variations of incineration. As it has been mentioned
above, an essential difference is that the gasication is an intermediate process for producing a fuel gas that can be used in a wide
variety of applications. It is also evident that, even though chemical
and fuel production from gasication of MSW is possible, and it is
likely the true goal for the close future, nowadays the most prevalent process is the use of syngas for onsite electrical and/or thermal
energy production. It has been already highlighted in the previous
paragraphs that this type of indirect-combustion processes differs
from conventional incineration in several key aspects, which appear to contribute to make air pollution control less costly and
complex than that required for conventional combustion process.
On the other hand, although exhaust gas cleanup of non-combustion thermochemical conversion processes may be easier than that
associated with incineration, a proper design of the process and
emissions control systems is necessary to ensure that health and
safety requirements are met. The output products of gasication
reactors can contain a variety of potential process and air pollutants that must be controlled prior to discharge into the ambient
air. These include particulate matter, tars, nitrogen and sulphur
oxides, dioxins and furans, hydrocarbons, and carbon monoxide.
Different strategies can be adopted to control emissions from gasication processes, and, as above mentioned, they are strictly
dependent on the adopted plant conguration and, in particular,
on the peculiar requirements of specic energy-conversion device
(Table 3). In any case, there is the evident advantage that air pollution control can be applied at the reactor outlet as well as the exhaust gas outlet, in several cases by using a combined approach.
Moreover, the low levels of oxygen present in gasication processes (where equivalence ratio ranges between 0.25 and 0.50)

637

U. Arena / Waste Management 32 (2012) 625639

Table 9
} Nord (2007), UCR
Some certied emissions from waste gasication plants. Main sources data are: Harada (2003), Kenou-Kennan and Kanyou-Kumiai (2006), Juniper (2007), TUV
(2009), Zeus GGD (2011).
Company
Plant location
Gasier typea

Nippon Steel
Kazusa, Japan
DD-EAG-HT

JFE/Thermoselect
Nagasaki, Japan
DD-OG-HT

Waste capacity

200 tons/day
MSW
2.3 MWe

Power
production

Emissions, mg/m3N (at 11% O2)

Particulate
10.1
HCl
<8.9
NOx
22.3
SOx
<15.6
Hg

Dioxins/furans,
0.032
n-TEQ/m3N
a

Mitsui R21
Toyohashi, Japan
RK-AG-LT

Energos
Averoy, Norway
MG-AG-LT

Plasco En.
Ottawa, Canada
PG-HT

300 tons/day
MSW
8 MWe

Ebara TwinRec
Kawaguchi, Japan
ICFB-AG(LT + HT)
420 tons/day
MSW
5.5 MWe

400 tons/day
MSW
8.7 MWe

100 tons/day
MSW
10.2 MWth

110 tons/day
MSW

<3.4
8.3

0.018

<1
<2
29
<2.9
<0.005
0.000051

<0.71
39.9
59.1
18.5

0.0032

0.24
3.61
42
19.8
0.0026
0.0008

9.1
2.2
107
19
0.0001
0.006

EC Standard/
Japanese
standard

10/11
10/90
200/229
50/161
0.03/
0.1/0.1

Acronyms from Table 6.

strongly inhibits the formation of dioxins and furans, even though

however hydrogen chloride in the syngas must be managed if combustion for heat or power follows gasication. Emission data that
are so far collected from independent sources appear to indicate
that gasication technologies is able to operate within existing regulatory constraints (UCR, 2009). A synthesis of these data is presented in Table 9, together with the limits of the European
Community and Japanese standards.
In order to dene the overall environmental performance of
gasication-based WtE facilities, it is crucial to report some considerations about the management of solid residues, i.e. bottom ash
and APC residues (that include the y ash). The type and composition of these residues strongly depend on the specic gasication
technology as well as on the type of treated wastes (Heermann
et al., 2001; DEFRA, 2007a; E4tech, 2009; Stantec, 2010). Table 7 already highlights that several commercially-available gasication
technologies are able to produce solid residues that are completely,
or for a large part, recyclables. Table 10 reports some leaching tests
carried out on the slags of two large-scale, high-temperature gasication units. All the values appear remarkably lower than the target references, then the low impurity content and the good
homogeneity allow to sold these slags for different utilization, such
as aggregate for asphalt paving mixtures. The metal recovered
from the melting section can be also recovered while the y ash
are chemically treated and then disposed in landll. It could be
therefore deduced that for large part of the MSW gasication processes the amount of solid residues that must be disposed in landlls can be dramatically reduced.
Table 10
Results of some slag leaching tests in two high-temperature MSW gasiers.
Element

Regulationa

Measuredb

Measuredc

Cd
Pb
Cr6+
As
T-Hg
Se
F
B

mg/L
<0.01
<0.01
<0.05
<0.01
<0.0005
<0.01
<0.8
<1.0

mg/L
<0.001
<0.005
<0.02
<0.001
<0.0005
<0.001

mg/L
<0.001
<0.005
<0.02
<0.005
<0.0005
<0.002
<0.08
<0.01

a
Quality standard for soil (in agreement with the Notication No. 46, Japanese
Ministry of the Environment, and the JIS-Japanese Industrial Standard K0058).
b
Test carried out in a Nippon Steel-high temperature shaft furnace having a
capacity of 252 tons/day of MSW, bottom ash from other MSW incinerators and
residues from recycling centers (Tanigaki et al., 2012).
c
Test carried out in a JFE-high temperature shaft furnace plant having a capacity
of 314 tons/day of RDF from MSW (Suzuki and Nagayama, 2011).

7. Conclusions
Recent policy to tackle climate change and resource conservation, such as the Kyoto Protocol, the deliberations at Copenhagen
in 2009 and the Landll Directive of the European Union, stimulated the development of renewable energy and landll diversion
technology, so providing gasication technology development a renewed impetus.
Gasication could now be proposed as a viable alternative solution for waste treatment with energy recovery. On the other hand,
it still faces some technical and economic problems, mainly related
to the highly heterogeneous nature of feeds like municipal solid
wastes and the relatively limited number of plants (about 100)
worldwide based on this technology that have continuous operating experience under commercial conditions. In the aggressive
working environment of MSW management, with its uncompromising demand for reasonable cost, high reliability and operational
exibility, it could be premature to indicate the gasication as the
thermal processing strategy of the future or even as a strong competitor for combustion systems, at least for any size of WtE plants.
The success of an advanced thermal technology is determined by
its technical reliability, environmental sustainability and economic
convenience. The rst, and then mainly the on-line availability, appears today supported by years of successful continuous operations of about one hundred gasication-based WtE plants, mainly
in Japan but now also in Korea and Europe. The environmental performance is one of the greatest strengths of gasication technology, which often is considered a sound response to the
increasingly restrictive regulations applied around the world:
independently-veried emissions tests indicate that gasication
is able to meet existing emissions limits and can have a great effect
on the reduction of landll disposal option. Economic aspects are
probably the crucial factor for a relevant market penetration, since
gasication-based WtE tends to have ranges of operating and capital costs higher than those of conventional combustion-based WtE
(in the order of about 10%), mainly as a consequence of the ash
melting system or, in general, of the added complexity of the technology. Anyway the evidence of the last few years would indicate a
convenience of gasication plants for size smaller than about
120 kt/y. The greatest technical challenges to overcome for a wider
market penetration of commercial advanced gasication technologies appears still to be that of an improved and cheaper syngas
cleaning, able to conveniently meet dened specications and to
obtain higher electric energy conversion efciencies. The next
few years will tell us if the results of R&D programs worldwide active along with performance data and know-how from several

638

U. Arena / Waste Management 32 (2012) 625639

commercial waste gasiers in operation will allow us to consider

the gasication process as a strong competitor of conventional
moving grate or uidized bed combustion systems.
Acknowledgements
The study was carried out in the framework of the activities of
the IWWG Task Group on Thermal Treatments.
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